X11 in docker on macOS

x11_docker_mac.md

To forward X11 from inside a docker container to a host running macOS

1. Install XQuartz: https://www.xquartz.org/
2. Launch XQuartz. Under the XQuartz menu, select Preferences
3. Go to the security tab and ensure "Allow connections from network clients" is checked.
4. Run xhost + ${hostname} to allow connections to the macOS host *
5. Setup a HOSTNAME env var export HOSTNAME=`hostname`*
6. Add the following to your docker-compose:

  environment:
  - DISPLAY=${HOSTNAME}:0
  volumes:
  - /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix

_{* It should be noted that steps 4 and 5 can be automated to run everytime XQuartz starts, but that's outside of the scope of this gist}

I was stuck on this for a while. Eventually I realized there might be a problem with Xquartz. Indeed after downgrading as suggested by @R1kk3r and following these steps below everything worked fine.

defaults write org.macosforge.xquartz.X11 nolisten_tcp -bool false
export DISPLAY=localhost:0
xhost +localhost
xhost +$(hostname)

Hope that helps.

See here for much easier instructions: https://gist.github.com/devnoname120/ce02ef43da968e15340427c2f1c286a7